Engaging Ideas - 2/24/2017

Every week we curate stories and reports on complex issues. This week: A new survey on what qualities political scientists think are most essential to democracy. A study adds to a growing body of research on the positive effects of building trusting relationships between students and teachers. The misguided solution to curbing health care costs: drug price controls. Ideas on how cities should take care of their housing problems.

Democracy

Democracy
in America: How Is It Doing? (The Upshot)A
new research project will periodically survey political scientists on crucial
measures of a functioning democracy, looking for change over time.

A Month
and a Half in, a Freshman Congressman Faces His Angry Constituents (The
Takeaway)Republican
Congressman Scott Taylor, a 37-year-old former Navy SEAL, handily won the
November election in his military-heavy Virginia district. That doesn’t mean
all of his constituents agree with everything President Trump and the
Republicans in Congress are trying to do—especially when it comes to repealing
Obamacare. While some G.O.P. lawmakers have shied away from holding town hall
meetings during their one-week recess, Taylor met with his district face to
face. Hear how it went.

K-12 Education

When
School Doesn't Seem Fair, Students May Suffer (Education Week)A
“trust gap” that begins in middle school may render students less likely to
attend college, even if they succeed academically, according to new research
from The University of Texas at Austin. The research, published in the
journal Child Development, focuses on middle school students of
color who lose trust in their teachers due to perceptions of mistreatment from
school authorities.

Higher Education & Workforce Development

Report:
Financial Pressure Swamping Community College Students
(Diverse Issues in Higher Education)The
CCCSE
report surveyed nearly 100,000 community college students attending
177 institutions across the country. The majority of respondents said that they
were living paycheck to paycheck, and one fifth said that they would not be
able to come up with emergency funds should an emergency arrive. Close to half
of respondents said that they had run out of money in the past 12 months.

Why
should elite universities get more taxpayer support than regional public
colleges? (Washington Post)Mark
Schneider, vice president and institute fellow at the American Institutes for
Research, writes: Recent data from the Equality of Opportunity Project suggest
that the many taxpayer dollars invested in America’s most affluent universities
support the social mobility of only a very small number of middle- and
low-income students, while disproportionately assisting yet more upward
mobility for the already well-heeled.

Health Care

When
Evidence Says No, But Doctors Say Yes (ProPublica)Years
after research contradicts common practices, patients continue to demand them
and doctors continue to deliver. The result is an epidemic of unnecessary and
unhelpful treatment.

States
Consider Imposing Drug Price Controls (Forbes)Upon
further investigation, it becomes clear pharmaceutical price controls – like
those now being debated in eight state capitals – are misguided solutions in
search of a problem, and are a red herring when it comes to the effort to bend
the overall health care cost curve.

Cities/Housing

What
Should Cities Make? (CityLab)President
Trump is gung-ho about the U.S. producing more goods. But what, exactly, should
cities be making in the 21st century?

How
Cities Should Take Care of Their Housing Problems (The
New York Times)Many
big cities face a triple threat: Mr. Trump wants to cut funding to sanctuary
cities; his nominee to run the Department of Housing and Urban Development, Ben
Carson, is unlikely to be a strong and creative leader; and the Republican
Congress is eager to chip away at federal housing programs. In response, cities
need local financing initiatives that make up for the coming reduction in
federal assistance.

Anatomy
of a NIMBY (CityLab)Restricting
housing construction does not just hurt developers—it makes housing less
affordable for everyone. But to overcome neighborhood resistance, you need to
understand what drives it.